Zahira Sheikh

ARTICLES ABOUT ZAHIRA SHEIKH BY DATE - PAGE 2

NEW DELHI: SC on Monday asked Zahira Sheikh and the Gujarat government to explain whether her latest statement favouring the accused in the case amounted to filing a false affidavit before the apex court and should it be viewed as contempt. A bench comprising Justices Arijit Pasayat and HK Sema also issued a notice to the National Human Rights Commission on an application filed by Teesta Setalvad of the Citizens for Justice & Peace. Ms Setalvad had filed the application seeking a CBI probe into Zahira's frequent change of statement.

VADODARA: Police today summoned Zahira Sheikh, the main witness in the Best Bakery case, for recording her statement in connection with the complaint filed by her brother Nafitullah against BJP MLA Madhu Srivastav and three others for allegedly threatening them to turn hostile during the trial last year. "We have sent a summons and telephonically informed Zaheera's custodian in Mumbai, Teesta Setlvad," police commissioner Sudhir Sinha said. Meanwhile, police sources revealed that since October 6 last year, they had tried to contact Zaheera 13 times ?

NEW DELHI: The Narendra Modi government suffered a rude jolt today when the Supreme Court, in an unprecedented step, ordered the cancellation of the acquittal of all 21 accused in the Best Bakery murder case and its retrial in a Maharashtra court. In a judgement, which is certain to come as a big embarrassment to the BJP on the eve of the Lok Sabha polls, a Division Bench comprising Justice Doraiswamy Raju and Justice Arijit Pasayat, while allowing appeals filed by key witness Zahira Sheikh and the state government, compared the government functionaries with modern-day "Neros" who kept looking elsewhere while innocent children and helpless women were burnt alive.

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday granted two weeks time to the Gujarat government to file an amended appeal challenging acquittal of all the 21 accused in the Best Bakery case A Bench headed by Chief Justice V N Khare said the state government should file the amended appeal by October 6. It fixed October 9 to take up the petition filed by National Human Rights Commission and a key witness in the Best Bakery case, Zahira Sheikh. The court also questioned the chief secretary and the Director General of Police of Gujarat regarding the mishandling of the case.

NEW DELHI: Gujarat government led by Chief Minister Narendra Kumar Modi has the distinction of being the rare administration which has attracted severest possible strictures by the Supreme Court of India. In the past, the apex court had taken many governments including the Centre to task, but for different reasons. Some Prime Ministers and their ministers, some governors, a few chief ministers and several state ministers have won the court's ire either for non-governance or their inertia or for becoming above law, but the admonishment of Modi by Chief Justice V N Khare is an unparalleled judicial observation.

The Indian public and press wail endlessly about crimes that go unpunished, from fraud and embezzlement to rape and murder. But one major crime attracts no attention or odium: perjury. The only newspaper column I can recall on this subject was an excellent one by Manoj Mitta. Our cavalier toleration of perjury is a major, underestimated reason why our justice system has become farcical. The Best Bakery case was a terrible case of communal murder during the Gujarat riots last year.

When the fast track court hearing the Best Bakery case acquitted all 21 accused of massacring 14 Muslims in the bakery's premises on March 1, 2002, Justice A S Anand, the chairman of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) lamented that there had been a miscarriage of justice. Monday's statement by Zahira Sheikh that she had turned a hostile witness during the trial under duress, confirms Justice Anand's observation. Zahira says she was threatened by BJP MLA Madhu Shrivastava, who told her that the rest of her family too would be killed if she identified those who murdered her father, uncles and sister.